Antiques Trade Gazette has produced a handy guide to the proposed changes:

Last updated September 10, 2018 with news and letters from ATG Nos 2356 and 2358.

The guide answers key questions including:

What does the ban involve from an antiques point of view and is the ‘1947’ date still relevant?

When will the law come into effect?

Should I stop selling ivory now?

When the law is enacted, what can be sold under the 10% de minimis exemption?

What does Defra mean by ‘rarest and most important items of their type’?

What impact will the 100-years-old requirement have?

What will I have to do to sell under the exemptions?

How will Defra police registration?

What will the penalty be for breaking the law?

What chance the ban can be amended before it becomes law?

On announcing the intended ban, Environment Secretary Michael Gove said: "The ban on ivory sales we will bring into law will reaffirm the UK's global leadership on this critical issue, demonstrating our belief that the abhorrent ivory trade should become a thing of the past."

The consultation had received more than 70,000 responses, with over 88% of responses in favour of the ban.

The proposed ban is not yet law and so for now current CITES regulations still apply to ivory items.

In the meantime...

For more detailed information about CITES, we have provided a full set of notes from our seminar on CITES held in January 2017 including: